Has anyone realized...?

So since none of us live under a rock, we've all heard about how BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is raping the ecosystems of about six different states for generations to come, and that their colossal screw-up can now be seen in space:

"Houston, we're fine but you don't look too good."

And when you realize that this oil spill ALONE has done more damage to U.S. shores that every other war in history combined, then a pattern starts to emerge.

BP comes off a BIT like a classic superhero villain here. I mean, first they make blow something up, then they make colossal blunder, then they appear on TV to warn everyone. This comes off exactly like a Dr. Doom scheme, except he was smart enough to read his to-do list the right way up.

And yes, that entire picture to the left was a thirty second excuse to steal Kat's evil laugh.

Seriously, they're even total dicks too. On day 52 of the spill (Day "7 weeks and still sucking"), a spokesman for BP claimed that they were "not aware of any reason" their stocks dropped 16 percent. So either they're incredibly stupid or taking an oily black piss over thousands of square miles of marine and human life is natural for them. Either way, they'd make the perfect Batman villain. These guys are like Scrooge McDuck without the moral guidance of his half-naked duck nephews. In fact, if the US were to declare war on BP right now, it'd be the first time in 70 years that we would be 100% in the right. There's no denying it, we couldn't ask for a more popular war than if we ressurected Hitler.

This is plan B and it's not without merit.

And besides, when your villainous deed can be seen from SPACE, this is the point in the comic where Captain Planet starts existing and kicking your ass.

What the f-

http://www.nypress.com/article-21357-bored-game.html

You see before you the only negative review of Toy Story 3, ever. Now, I'm no expert on movie critique, but isn't Hamm the goddamn Piggy Bank one of the supporting heroes and has been since the FIRST Toy Story?

Yet "daycare center’s cynical veteran cast-offs: Hamm the Piggy Bank pig, Lotsa Hugs and Big Baby."

Dear Armond White: Watch movies better. Oh wait, here's his (positive) review of Jonah Hexand here's the next sentence of the review: "Besides,Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence. " Correction- Dear Armond White: Watch better movies.

Anyways, since Austin found the source the guy I stole this from stole this from, I guess I should add my own opinion. At the end of the review, Armond White mentions how there were only two parts that made him laugh, which were the art references. Then he complains that "they never were expanded on."

No, Toy Story 3 didn't need to expand on these references, because JOKES DON'T NEED TO BE EXPANDED ON. AND THEY WERE JOKES. Jesus Christ, are you really a movie critic or are you a movie critic like the internet is a movie critic?

A little research (Wikipedia) leads me to Armond White's biography, where it says that he chose to become a movie critic after reading some book about a woman who hated popular movies and liking it. Let me get this straight: You decided to be a movie critic based on the sole fact that you liked contradicting people? There's a reason we don't go to Norwegian Black Metal concerts and ask the crowd to give us advice about culture.

Roger Ebert, or more commonly known on the Internet as "Roger Never-played-a-video-game-before-in-my-life-yet-dismiss-them-as-mediocre Ebert", at one point agreed with AW about his District 9 bashing. Then, he looked at a list of Armond White's favorite movies and hated movies.

Among the hated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight. Among the favorites: Transformers 2, Jonah Hex, Norbit, Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?.

As soon as Roger "douchebag" Ebert saw this list, he retracted his support for Armond White and dismissed him as a troll. Now, if know me and my unhealthy obsession with video games at all, you'll know I'm kind of the opposite of a Roger Ebert fan. Yet, in this situation, I honestly don't know who I hate more. It's led to a bit of confusion.

Confusion.

stupid things glenn beck has said

http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/glenn_beck

Looked into Glenn Beck a bit, watched a couple of his shows. And now I hate him.

Badass Bible Stories (or Why You Should Stay Awake In Church)

You might all think that the Bible is flowery text that would be interesting to read if you were devoted to God or a Classical Literature major, but it can actually get way more kickass than that. Note that none of this is an attempt to either preach or mock the Bible, but rather just to entertain you. Of course, evangelizing could be easier if we just told non-Christians to read the passages in this post, but I've never tried it.

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But first, some background information:

-Many see the Bible as divine inspiration from God himself

-Others see the Bible as inspiration for Norwegian black metal band names

-The four Gospel accounts vary, probably because they were written by four different people for varying audiences. Unfortunately, other Gospels and books of the Bible, such as the one written for gamers, either never existed or were cut out of the Bible.

(picture went here before, but now it's gone because of glitchy blogger)

Gospel According to Bungie

-The Bible is a compilation of books and texts that were written by various authors across many years (how they were compiled depends on whether you're Dan Brown).

-Most scholars that the various books of the Bible were compiled from the separate texts that were floating around between 1200 BC and 100 AD.

-Other people believe most parts of the Bible were written in the 1950s.

(again, a picture went here before but now it's gone)

Sweet Jesus, and that's one of the better ones.

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Anyways, now that you're filled in, here's the part I glossed over: If the Bible were written by a divinely inspired Batman wrapped in X-Men on the backs of every spartan you see in 300, it would still look pretty much the same as it is today, because as it turns out, it's already stuffed to the brim with ass-kicking. Now read this post and rush out there and put some unbelievers to the sword.

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Ehud (Auditore da Firenze Altair blah blah blah) the Assassin.

History repeats itself, sometimes in very awesome ways. Our hero Ehud managed to pull off this stunt a good several thousands years before either Altair or Ezio did in the two Assassin's Creed games. Only instead of strapping hidden blades to his wrist, he strapped an eighteen inch long sword to his thigh:

Judges 3:16-23 "Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon kind of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." The king said "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them." -Judges 3:16-23

So Ehud bypasses tight security and starts acting like Bruce Willis, even busting out the one-liner "I have a message from God for you." Then he whips out his blade and shanked the evil king Eglon right in the belly. Really, the only way this could be any more badass is if Ehud threw in something like "Wow, I guess being a ruler takes guts" right after the kill. The Bible doesn't say if he goes flying over the rooftops like the bastard son of Batman and Altair from AsCreed, so I'm forced to assume "Yes."

Although, I have to wonder why none of the guards who frisked him wondered why there was eighteen inches of cold, hard steel between his thighs. I guess he told them he was Egyptian or something.

Egyptians and their Endowment (sexually explicit section of post, just saying)

Ezekiel 23:19-20 "Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in

Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." -Ezekiel 23:19-20

You might think the Bible shies away from sex, but it really doesn't. The Bible isn't too uptight about the subject, even containing the Song of Songs, which holds such gems as "She is a wall and her breasts are like towers". In Ezekiel 23:19-20, there's a full verse dedicated to telling us that Egyptians are hung like farm animals and emits quantities of (self-kensorship) that coincide perfectly with the annual flooding of the Nile. And Egyptians are the BAD GUYS of this tale of the Old Testament, which means their reputation w

as well earned if all their enemies could say to the prostitute of this passage was "Go! Go on! Run back to those big-[kensor]ed bastards! I hope you're happy with their enormous dongs.

The Egyptians didn't run from this reputation either. If anything, they endorsed it. Here's a picture of Min, Egyptian God of Dong-Having:

(Photo of penises kensored. I mean, seriously Jason?? Do I need to censor every post from you by now?)

In fact, the Egyptians invented the obelisk:

To advertise this fact. Their message to their enemies went something like "Gaze upon our dick-towers and despair!"

Moses

In a part of the Bible you know from the Ten Commandments, Moses and his brother Aaron freed the Hebrew slaves. What you may not know from the Ten Commandments is that they achieved this in a totally awesome way. Need proof?

Exodus 2:11-12 "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." -Exodus 2:11-12

Moses was a great leader and emancipator, but he was also the Biblical version of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher. Martin Luther King had a dream, but Moses had a body count. Picture this scene: An Egyptian is beating a slave, when Moses drops down from the ceiling and kills a man with his bare hands. He then wraps things up by pulling out a cigar and lighting it, casually quipping "Looks like you bit off a little more than you could Jew."

Moses and Aaron were also given a magical staff from God, which did a variety of cool things like

Exodus 7:10-12- "Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of the Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian

magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs." Exodus 7:10-12

So their staff turns into a snake. Then, the Egyptian magicians copy this trick, only their snakes are slightly less hungry. Although, through my experiences with Egyptian magic, they were either card game monsters summoned through tablets imbued with magic from the Shadow Realm and called to Earth by ancient Egyptian Life

Points, or those cheap plastic snakes with wire snaking through them to make them look like they can move.

Probably the latter. In any case, they later use their staff to turn rivers to blood, spread disease throughout the land, call forth swarms of locusts, and turn a rock in the middle of a desert into a waterfall for a couple of hours. It's like God gave them the wildcard of a terrifying game of superpower poker.

And remember how earlier I said Egyptians were renowned for having enormous dang-a-langs? Well now you do, and you're forced to imagine the Egyptian turkey-slapping the slave. Which really makes Moses' actions all the more justified.

Elijah and Elisha, Miracle-Making Tag Team

Elijah and Elisha were basically two prophets that roamed the earth smiting heathens, setting water on fire, summoning bears, and raising the dead. To get a scope on how badass they were, flip to 2 Kings 2:11-12:

"As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over." 2 Kings 2:11-12

So basically, God decided that waiting potentially thousands of years (Elijah lived for a REALLY long time) for Elijah to die and go to Heaven so the Lord could go clubbing with him or whatever was way too long, so He decided to simply pluck up Elijah and take him to the Pearly Gates while the prophet was still alive. And because he likes to make these rare public appearances count for something, he staged the entire thing on his giant flaming pimpmobile chariot. Then, Elisha, realizing that his name could no longer be confused with his dad's and reached his full potential. Doing what was such a big deal for Moses and his magic staff to do, he picked up a bit of dirty laundry and split a body of water in half and journeyed off. Now what can he possibly do to top something so badass? Well, skip a few verses forward to 2

Kings 2:23-24 and find out:

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths."

We've all been there before. We're just minding our own business when some group of jackasses start hurling insults at you. Most of us would make a witty comeback, ignore them, or flip them the bird, but Elisha takes things one step further and summons bears to eat them. Forty-two of them. Some people are constantly asking for prayer in schools to get us youth in line, but I beg to differ. We need bears in schools. It's a simple choice, learn the digestive system from your textbook or learn it from the inside of a mother[kensored] bear.

And speaking of school, Elijah (the flaming chariot one) pretty much rocks the Speech and Debate stage.

1 Kings 18:24, 33-35, 38-40 " Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God." Then all the people said, "What you say is good."... "He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood." "Do it again," he said, and they did it again. "Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench... Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The LORD -he is God! The LORD -he is God!" Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there." 1 Kings 18:24, 33-35, 38-40

THIS is how they should do religious debates. Here's the story: the people of Israel had taken to Baal worship, which was essentially idol worship except with a bunch of whores added to the ritual. In other words, an immediate success. Elijah (not the bear one) decided it was time for people to choose between Baal and God. Rather than write a series of books or give a bunch of boring speeches, Elijah invited 450 Baal prophets to a contest, where both sides would set up an animal sacrifice. Whichever God could rain down fire on its sacrifice would be the one everybody worshiped. This makes perfect sense, since no matter how much you debate about the validity of your God, at the end of the day you have to worship the God valid enough to set your ass on fire. When all 450 of the Baal prophets called on Baal to set the altar on fire, nothing happened. Elijah sat back and mocked them, goading them into doing it a few more times. Again, nothing happened. Finally, Elijah pours about four gallons of water onto his altar and prays to God. Fire rains down and smited a good bit of the prophets as well as the sacrifice, the altar, the soil, the rocks, and the frickin' water. Again, I'm forced to interpret the Bible and fill in the blanks that it doesn't cover. I'm going to assume Elijah straightened up and dusted off his robes, and then smoothly stated "Thus, my opponent's argument fails." He then ended the debate like all debates should be ended, by rounding up the losers and slaughtering them. Now, Elijah might seem like a pretty damn good debater, probably better than Austin in some respects (see also: all of them), but the Baal prophets got off pretty easy compared to what usually happens when God himself takes the stand.

Back to Moses, God defeats hundreds of rebels in glorious rebuttal

Numbers 16:23-24, 31-33 "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the assembly, "Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiran'"... As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community." Numbers 16:23-24, 31-33

The above happened years after Moses killed the Egyptian guy and led a country's worth of Hebrews into the desert where they wandered aimlessly for several decades (as seen in The Ten Commandments). At some point, a troublemaker named Korah and 250 supporters banded together and aired a series of complaints about the fact that they were wandering aimlessly in the desert. Being a prodigious debater, God listened carefully to their complaints, weighed each point carefully, and then made the earth eat the alive. This really puts things into perspective for anti-religion critics today. They constantly attack Christians about their faith, and then bitch in the nastiest ways when Christians retaliate, saying there's no REAL proof that the Black Pearl God exists. Well, the alternative to Christians standing up for their faith is God feeding you to the Mighty Sarlacc (look it up, pictures aren't working right now) instead.

Samson and his Lion-Crushing, Phillistine Killing Strength

If I wanted to, I could have easily let Samson dominate a good half of this list, who had the ability to call upon the strength of the Lord and invoke a hurricane of ass-kicking. The other half would, of course, be occupied by Elijah and Elisha. Why is this, you ask? Well have a look at Judges 14: 5-6

"...suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore apart the lion with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father or his mother what he had done." Judges 14: 5-6

So essentially, Samson at the young and tender age distracted his mom and dad with the classic "Hey look over there and not at this gushing fountain of lion gore flying all over the place" trick and killed a lion. Note that the author says "as he would've torn apart a young goat", which really says something about Samson without his super strength, namely that holy [kensored] he supposedly tears apart young goats easily. After this, the legacy of Samson truly began.

Judges 15:15 "Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men." Judges 15:15

Samson's whole story involves his feud with the Philistines, people who embraced the long celebrated tradition of hating Jews and declared war on them. Or rather, declared war on Samson. And the Philistines lost. On this particular day, the Philistines had burned Samson's wife to death, and sent some men to capture him. Specifically, they sent 3,000 men. So, at that point, Samson either had the reputation as a world-class badass, or the Philistine army was the equivalent of those [kensored]ty battle droids from the Star Wars prequels that could only kill an enemy soldier by crushing him under a pile of their own corpses.

Either way, they didn't send enough. Samson tore apart the skull of a nearby dead donkey and grabbed a jawbone and killed a thousand men. A thousand. Now what underlines the badass-ocity of this tale? The fact that the Philistines kept charging, namely the ones who, after watching 700 or so of their comrades die, had to clamber over hills made of their murdered buddies just to get at Samson. If this seems improbable to you, then you can claim a mistranslation. For example, some translations of the Bible say only 20 men died. However, I don't think it's a numbers issue. I think most modern-day scholars simply mixed up the word for donkey jawbone with the word for Tyrannosaurus Rex jawbone.

Or maybe they mistranslated the Hebrew word for jawbone with the word for minigun.

Runners up for this spot on the list included Josheb-Basshebeth, who according to 2 Samuel 23:8, "... raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter." Obviously he lost points for killing fewer men and for using an actual weapon to do it, which almost seems like cheating at this point.

There was also Anath in Judges 3:31, who "struck down six hundred philistines with an oxgoad." An oxgoad is a sharp stick you used to poke oxen. That started the Israeli tradition of killing large numbers of their enemies with farmyard tools, which continued through Samson and onto modern times, where the Six Day War of 1967 was won by a crippled Israeli peasant wielding a watering can.

The only downside to Samson was that his strength was tied directly to his long hair, that is, when his hair got cut off so did his power connection with the Lord. In Samson's case, he revealed his secret to his bitchy girlfriend Delilah, who nagged him until he revealed this fact to her. Delilah then proceeded to shave his head and then hand him over to his enemies, so I guess you could say he has two weaknesses, short hair and boobs.

To be fair, though, he then tore down the pillars of the stone building he was being held in and killed himself along with all his captors in a glorious symphony of broken building. No doubt, Samson was remembered by the Philistines as the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Until King David came along...

1 Samuel 18:25-27 features Saul telling David that, in order to marry his daughter, had to go bring King Saul the foreskins of 100 Philistines. If you're wondering, foreskins are, unfortunately for the Philistines, not the skin of your forehead, but the skin of your, well, Trouser Titan. David agrees to this and, just for the hell of it, brings back 200 foreskins. This raises alot of weirdass questions, such as

"Why did Saul want 100 foreskins? Was he making a sweater?"

"Did David think at all that this was kind of weird?"

"If this was secretly a plan to have David killed, why not tell him to bring back 500 bear foreskins instead?"

"Did David just wander into Philistia and kill the first 200 men he saw? Did they think it was odd at all? Or, with all the other [kensored] that went down before, did they just shrug it off?

Since I have no desire at all to touch this topic, I'll never know the answer. The point is, David went way further to win the heart of Michal than any of us would ever have gone. Way, way, way, way, WAY further.

Ladies, when a man finally proposes to you, ask him one simple question: "How many dongs would you mutilate for me?" If you demand a hundred and he doesn't blink, he's a keeper. But, if he's David, who was sent after a hundred and then came back with twice that many just for the hell of it, well, you've got a love for the ages.

Sans chamber music, sans school...temporarily

As my season of chamber music-making draws to a close today, I finally realized how chamber music plays such a major role in a musician's experience. The people I look up to have always told me chamber music was important, but how important could it be? After all, I thought, if you play the music in tune and rhythmically correct, then you should be fine, but there is so much more than just playing your part if you want your ensemble to succeed. Not only did I improve as an ensemble player, but also as a soloist. It was through this experience that I learned that a musician is not just a musician; you have to be an actor, singer, and dancer all at once. It goes without saying that I worked with some of the most exceptional teachers and talented fellow musicians that I've ever met, and for once I truly had a first hand confrontation that "music speaks what words cannot express". You and your team members melt into an intimate puddle of musical conversations and it's awesome.

Sundays Live at Lacma

School started on a bad note and ended the same (my finals stunk like fetid corpses), but everything in between was cool. The highlight of this year would probably be Ms. Galloway- my history teacher. I'd rather listen to her powerpoint lectures than watch T.V. Although her baseball bat-wielding self is sometimes quite frightening, she's freaking awesome on the whole. MWH became my favorite class not because of the lessons, but because of the teacher.

I'm pretty glad that my hardest year is over, because this will be the only year where I'll take 4 academic classes at once. I'm going to take 3 academic classes soph year, and then 2 after that, although I'll still have to attend PCC to rake in extra credits. I used to think that a short school day sucked, but I realized I'm so blessed to even attend school at all (my parents still want me homeschooled).

Thanks to all who stuck with me even though I basically withdrew from socializing much at AHS.

See you guys in summer school.

EDIT: I got a 4.0 GPA, and I have NO idea how. Either my alg 2 teacher threw one heck of a curve on the finals or there was a computational error.

Facts People Take for True (That Totally Aren't)

I was going to make a 9/11 post until I realized I had other things to do besides argue with Austin for a few hours. So, I decided to finish this post instead.

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This post has been about a week in making (assuming I do as I planned and finish this on May 17) (Well, guess not -Jason)

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There are a lot of statistics/psychology/common sense facts people will quote to make themselves feel good, or to prove their point, or just to be total [kensored]. However, some people are so desperate for cool things to say that they'll just pull it right

out of their ass. These usually "scientifically backed" facts are, like most "science" to make it into our pop culture, are sometimes so wrong that they borderline of insanity, but it they sound so awesome that people can't help repeating them. I guarantee you that you've heard all of these before, and now I'm going to prove why they make it onto the list of [kensorship].

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"If you let your anger out, you'll feel much better afterwards"

You always hear how liberating it is to vent your anger, and how "If you bottle it all up, one day you'll snap!" Things like squeezing stress dolls, screaming into pillow

s, working out until your body screams bloody mercy, and strangling a kitten are all offered as healthy alternatives to, say, going ballistic and bringing a sawed-off shotgun to school and murdering everybody except that guy who gave you the Snickers. Makes sense, right? Why set an orphanage on fire when a duck pond will do?

Too bad it's a load of crap. In fact, research says it only makes the problem worse. You see, we have things called habits, and grossly simplified, it's when we do something that makes us feel good and we want to do it again and more often. The rush of anger is more addictive than crack, and when you rage and rage and rage, you feel so good about it afterwards that you start unconsciously finding things to be angry about. Lashing out to control your anger is like shooting heroin to control your addiction to crack. This is the same reason you don't see Buddhist monks beating into submission everything on the path to enlightenment.

Now don't get me wrong, bottling up your emotions is just as unhealthy, but at the same time, you don't see that guy on Hell's Kitchen mellowing out as each season passes.

"You Only Use 10% of Your Brain"

This has probably slipped into a few textbooks at some point, maybe been fed to you by elementary school teachers. I seem to recall Eric telling me about this in 7th grade. The fact that you only use 10% of your brain probably appeals to 1st grade teachers who have kids complaining that they just can't finish the 30 problems in their Mad Minutes, because if they really focused they could do 300 problems in 60 seconds if they wanted to, implying that we could set the teacher on fire with our minds if we just wanted to enough.

While not completely untrue, I can also tell you why it's a load of crap. Try reading this post ten times faster right now. Having trouble? That's because the other 90% of your brain is specialized, and don't actually have anything to do with the ability to read. The part of your brain you're using right now is not the same part you'll be using when you, say, murder a kitten with the sheer power of your anger, and the bottom of your shoe, later today. If you paid attention at all these last two weeks in Bio assuming you're taking general Bio at AHS (side note: my time spent learning about the nervous and immune system in preparation for Monden's final- 3 hours. Number of related questions on the final- one multiple choice problem, two true-false problems. Amount of rage- ^9000), you'll know that each part of your brain has a different function governing your body. There's even a part of your brain that keeps you from becoming a total dick(Austin was probably born without one BAM!). Don't tell this to Psychology Today, however, who wrote an article in a 2006 issue about accessing the lazy 90% of your brain. One of the suggestions is get plenty of nutrition, but that's probably covered by the spiders you eat in your sleep every night.

"You Eat About 8 Spiders In Your Sleep A Year"

Well, this is a kick in the nuts to the intellect of spiders everywhere. Not only does your epithelial tissue (found everywhere the sun doesn't shine) secrete enough mucus to ensure that you'd wake up with a mouthful of dead spiders, but shouldn't it be a given that spiders have enough inte

lligence not to go spelunking into the dark, wet mouth of a heavily snoring giant?

Apparently not, because back in 1993, a PC Professional columnist named Lisa Holst decided to prove that people will pretty much believe anything they read on the Internet. So, she published a bunch of made up facts, including this spider myth, in a series of chain mails and at the very end wrote the equivalent of "Hah! Fooled ya, douchebag!" Problem is, these "facts" became so popular that they were reworked into tons of other chain emails, with the writers just "happening" to forget to add the "douchebag" line. Who was stupid enough to believe this, you ask? Well, this supposed entomologist(well technically he's asking), this Yahoo! Answers frequenter(is she being sarcastic or not, I can't tell), this douchebag all do.

"Backmasking"

This article says it all, really. Basically, our mind isn't actually able to pick up messages backward when played forward, and even when played backward, it's mostly just a product of your own imagination or someone telling you what it is. (Example, when someone tells you Hotel California backwards is a Satanic message: You go home and try it. Now, since you're already looking for a Satanic message, you and your imagination fill in the otherwise garbled blanks and create one.)

"Men think about sex every 7 seconds. It's scientific fact!"

(If you are a seven year old, an elderly senior, easily offended by innuendo (in your end-o!) or Kat, skip this next bit)

The culprit for spreading this bullshit is a) a bunch of housewives angrily ranting about their husbands, b) feminists (not the equal rights for women kind, the "men suck and caused every war known to man ever women never caused any war" kind, which by the way is bullshit (bullshit x2)), and c) Ms. Diaz, who ranted about how men only care about sex to us while teaching Per. 4 Eng H Romeo and Juliet.

"Puhleeze, sister, we all know what's going on up there"

If you're a guy and reading this, I can prove to you right now that this is false. When you were reading about spiders just now, were you imagining a giant spider orgy? No? If you took more than seven seconds to read that bit, then you just proved "science" wrong. If yes, then get help. As a matter of fact, 30% of men don't actually think about sex at all.

What about men who work in a cubicle doing mind crushing work for eight hours straight? Do they come home and then suddenly start thinking about boning every second for the rest of the day including when they're sleeping just to make up for lost time? How would they even measure this statistic anyways? Hook up a bunch of electrodes to a guy for a week and count how many boners he gets? Need more proof?

Think about sex. Go ahead. Right now. I dare you.

About half of us believe this, according to this poll. So what about some guy who just got off the phone from deciphering a 2 hour session with the Indian guys at Dell's tech support? Does he then think about sex every two seconds to make up for time lost? Does his brain suddenly turn into a kaleidoscope of naked women for the rest of the day? (originally, that said "giant kaleidoscope of" something that started with a ti and ended with a tty, but then I decided not to piss of Kat any further)

"Wait 30 minutes/1 hour before getting into the pool after eating or else you'll drown"

You've heard this if you've ever had food in your hand near a pool. The implication was that you'd get a cramp, drown, and die if you didn't listen. You see, water, unlike air, has a magical property that makes bananas explode unless past a certain point in your digestive tract. And, since if you're anything like me, you went in anyways and found out that holy shit mom was lying.

Now why is it that this is a load of crap? Because you aren't a Gremlin (hey, remember that movie?). Water has no more effect on your body after eating than going for a walk does. Granted, if you're going to go for a rigorous swim in the pool right after eating an extra large pizza, you're also probably about to go chumming for sharks with your mouth.

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Okay what the hell, according to Blogger, I've been procrastinating on this article for like two months.

Mistake on the Broadcast

Argh I'm really sorry guys, but I gave you the wrong info. Apparently the radio broadcast wasn't live on radio (albeit the misleading name, "Sundays Live"), but on webcast at lacma.org. 88.5FM will broadcast it in the future, and I'll let you guys know the date as soon as I do.

Sorry for the inconvenience again.